Thank you to Flatiron Books for the ARC! “How would you like to save the world, son?” FKA USA is a wild ride. If you’re tired of reading the same old formulaic dystopian novel, this is the book for you. There are some tropes, such as the evil government/corporations stuff, but it's done in a way that feels fresh. In my opinion, this is definitely a unique take on a dystopian sci-fi adventure story that involves some odd and fun characters and an odd and funny mission (which I'll summarize more Thank you to Flatiron Books for the ARC! “How would you like to save the world, son?” FKA USA is a wild ride. If you’re tired of reading the same old formulaic dystopian novel, this is the book for you. There are some tropes, such as the evil government/corporations stuff, but it's done in a way that feels fresh. In my opinion, this is definitely a unique take on a dystopian sci-fi adventure story that involves some odd and fun characters and an odd and funny mission (which I'll summarize more with a quote a little further down). We’re dropped in the middle of a place “Formally Known As the USA” in the year 2085 with Truckee, an orphan who is basically a slave to the society he lives in (pretty much Hell) and a talking goat. There are other characters along the way, scientists, politicians, sentient androids, victims of radiation and chemical deformities, villains, and more, but Truckee and this talking goat are our main dudes. “The tortures mankind devises for its amusement will surely render the devil redundant.” Life is…not great in the territories formally known as the USA. This is not all fluffy humor. So keep that in mind. “I’m a firm believer in the right of every man, woman, and animal to end his or her life by choice, with dignity. We don’t choose the moment of our birth, and we certainly don’t choose the form our lives take on this pitiful planet. But we may choose the manner of our passing into the Great Pasture.” Our current time here in 2019 is far from a utopia, but it’s nothing compared to the nightmare of the Territories FKA the USA. That being said, the president of this hellish future says, “Nostalgia’s awful, son, I’ll tell you that too. The past has the advantage of being harmless. Even predators look pretty, so long as they’re good and dead.” If you’re a fan of books with maps, footnotes, and appendices, this is definitely the book for you. Thank you, Reed King, for giving the people what they want. I’m honestly most impressed with these three aspects. I’m one of those readers who salivates over maps, and these maps are awesome. There is a map in the inside cover of the book that shows the entirety of what used to be the United States of America, and there are also 6 maps before each of the 6 parts in this book. Those 6 are more detailed closeups of locations that show the path traveled. So 7 maps total. They’re beautiful and oh so appreciated. The footnotes are also something I love but rarely see in fantasy or science fiction books (or really any books that aren’t classic literature/poetry or nonfiction). I really appreciated the footnotes because we were just dropped into this complex world, and the footnotes provide a history lesson of sorts. Since the book is told as a “true story”, as if an editor found an autobiography many years after the events in the story, the footnotes and appendices kind of serve as editor’s notes. There are so many footnotes, and I can’t imagine this book without them. At times it felt like an overload of information, but the challenge was welcome. Crunchbucks, crumbs and uppercrusts, grifters, accidental persons, transspeciating, feeds, crazy new drugs like Shiver and Jump (and the “dimeheads” who abuse them), the Burnham Prize (a race to beat death), every single new element of the geography of the country formally known as the USA, and so much more. It’s a lot, but in a good way. If you're a fan of the show Black Mirror, this is the book for you. Technology plays a big role in this future, in a very interesting way. To quote Truckee, “You can make technology as smart as you want, but you can bet bank humans will be stupid about it.” This is also a world where social interactions are mostly had via “feeds” and VR, and a world where “physical contact without verbal consent was illegal in the colony— which wasn’t a bad thing, exactly, but made it pretty awkward for a sixteen-year-old kid hoping and praying he wouldn’t always be a virgin.” We see a very interesting view of how technology, science, and society interact in a dark vision of the future. If you love 1984 and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this is the book for you. We have the capitalist, controlling dystopian government, the insane hierarchy of class and wealth, a rich new vocabulary, a darkly bizarre humor, and funny characters on an adventure. There’s even a book called The Grifter’s Guide to the Territories FKA USA that’s continuously referenced and quoted at the beginning of chapters. The sections we see are usually both funny and sad. A pretty great summary of the book is actually a line that also demonstrates the kind humor you’ll find while reading: “I’d never been big on weed, not compared to everyone else I knew—Jared vaped every morning and even Annalee liked to take blueberry-flavored fresh on her lunch breaks— but since I was sneaking into enemy territory to deliver brain cells to a Crunch sleeper agent in the hopes that we could stop a global apocalypse of mind-controlled zombies, I figured it was as good a time to get high as any.” It’s ambitious and quite an impressive feat of complex world-building. I wrote a lot more notes on my post-its than I’m used to, but again, I was happy to do it. It’s a dream come true to readers like me who like to make little “guides”, if you will, to books you’re reading. There are so many great quotes I saved and I wish I could share them all, but I don’t want to fill this review with spoiler tags. This book definitely isn’t for the average reader. It isn’t an easy read. You have to completely immerse yourself in the world and keep track of details and characters. It’s important to know that before diving in because this book is an investment. I haven’t read a book like this before, and I think it could’ve been too overwhelming to enjoy if the story wasn’t so immersive and interesting. The impressive writing and friendly/familiar/playfully dark narrative voice definitely help. Reed King is a skilled writer, you can’t argue that. (A quick search says "Reed King is the pseudonym of a New York Times bestselling author and TV writer", so I'm just going to use "he" and assume King a guy). His imagination is a powerful drug, and I hope he continues to produce and share with the world. This is a special book but it is an acquired taste and not for everyone. I recommend FKA USA to anyone with the determination to slug through a dense, lengthy book, and to anyone who feels bored by the sameness-structure of the genre.
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